CH 35

Ishida confirmed that the conference room was locked first before he began his report.

[After the President left, I visited the Tokyo branches of several funds and VC firms, guided by the lead coordinator’s security company. I myself was also unfamiliar with their industries. It’s not unusual to find ghost companies to have no substance and were only a company in name. There were even some of them I found to have questionable sources of funds.]

The purpose of Ishida’s visit was apparently to flick away the suspicious fund companies.

Unlike business companies with assets and facilities, funds only have their numbers, so they are easy to counterfeit.

Hiroki did hear a story about them, about how rich people all over the world were evading taxes through such dummy companies.

[Errr, what was it called again? Was it Panama or Pandora something?]

[President must be talking about Pandora Papers. As the leaked list of offshore tax-saving dummy companies for the super-rich was revealed, the super-rich, who account for 90% of the world’s wealth, are always looking for profitable investment opportunities. Especially investments that don’t charge taxes.]

[Hmph…… However, we pay our taxes.]

The waste disposal industry is an easily-beaten business, and keeping a good relationship with the locals is important.

And so, their company properly pays their taxes.

As for the local bank, well, Hiroki thought of borrowing a little bit of money from them to keep relations with the person in charge……

[According to them, it’s a betrayal to capitalism to entrust the use of funds to incompetent groups such as the nation. The proposal also included an invitation to join a tax-saving circle for the super-rich…… but the President isn’t interested in that, right?]

[Nope.]

In the first place, Hiroki thinks that he has more money than he would ever need.

Hiroki had lived in poverty for a long time and had the financial sense of a commoner, so when he went to a gyudon chain, he was still having a hard time deciding between a medium or a large bowl.

[Well, they are the ones who induce that kind of personal profit even before they invest in a business. Their investments are nothing but proposals. Other than that…… Ummm……]

Seeing him hesitate, Hiroki could guess what had happened.

[Proposals for personal benefits personally to you, Ishida?]

[……Well, something like that. “You’re practically in charge of the management of the company, and with our investment, we’ll make you the President”, or so they said.]

A coup d’etat proposal by a company hijacker.

In one respect, Hiroki does think they’re correct in their view that they can control the company by manipulating Ishida, the person who is actually in charge of the company.

[That sounds very plausible. You accepted it?]

Of course, if Ishida accepts the proposal, Hiroki wouldn’t have any other choice.

He feels sad, but he will give him the push as they part ways.

[No way! No, please don’t look at me like that! I have no intention of accepting at all!]

Looking really terrified, Ishida denied it while breaking out in a cold sweat.

Hiroki thinks he doesn’t need to deny it so hard though.

[Is that so? Maybe when you’re promised lots and lots of money?]

From Hiroki’s point of view, what Ishida likes is money.

That much is obvious to him, so he pays as much as he can as the Director of a business company.

When combined with various allowances, Ishida’s current salary must exceed that of most professional athletes.

However, it’s likely that the fund managers would pay him two orders of magnitude more than that.

They would think that being able to buy him for 10 billion yen would be a bargain, since they would estimate the value of this business at several hundred billion to several trillion yen.

[Well, I was offered various favorable conditions, but they are just verbal promises. They’d obviously renege those promises. Even if we did make a proper contract, it would be in exchange for revealing the waste disposal technology. Their goal is to take over the company and monopolize the technology.]

[Monopoly of technology huh…… That’s impossible.]

[It was indeed impossible. There’s no way I can reproduce “the company’s technology”. In that case, it would be a breach of contract and I would be thrown out without the compensation promised in advance. It would just be a short-lived rule as the short-lived President. The return is not worth the risk.]

[I see.]

The good thing about Ishida is that he is so obsessed with money that he can see things in terms of risk and reward.

Therefore, as long as Hiroki properly pays him, Ishida will not betray him.

The reward offered may seem high for those who are likely to betray, but it’s not feasible.

In other words, since he had low expectations from the counter-offer, Ishida won’t be dazzled by them.

It’s very rational and easy to understand.

[There was more than one fund that came to me with that kind of indirect takeover proposal. Some of them may have been more radical in trying to get rid of the President or to get the technology quickly.]

Radical way of thinking, having the desire to finish things quickly, making them think of choosing the violent choice as appealing.

That is the way of the Yakuzas, the Mafia and those communities lurking in the underworld.

[Must be someone from the underworld huh.]

[Their money must have come from the underworld. The one who tried to kidnap the President this time may have been amateurs, but I heard that some of them could hire experts with military backgrounds, so be careful.]

Ishida reminded Hiroki to take care of himself.

He knew that Hiroki was physically strong, but no amount of physical strength would be a match for a soldier with a gun.

Hiroki sometimes had a tendency to expose himself unprotected to danger, and Ishida was concerned about that.

[That would definitely be scary, wouldn’t it?]

Hiroki lightly shrugged his shoulders at Ishida’s advice.

In Hiroki’s mind though, all he thought was how Ishida’s mannerisms were becoming more foreigner-like.

[In the first place, I wasn’t alone, but was accompanied by someone from the IR, finance, legalities and our bodyguard. It’s all about splitting up the management team here.]

Ishida wasn’t as overconfident as Hiroki, so he worked collectively with a team.

He contracted with a first-rate security company to dispatch a former military expert as his bodyguard while he was in Tokyo.

Thanks to this, he didn’t face any particular danger during his stay in Tokyo.

[They sure make things quite complicated.]

Hiroki was getting tired with all the tricks the fund’s people were trying to pull that he wanted to stuff them all in oil drums and throw them in the hole.

That would definitely take them off his back.

[That’s the kind of people they are after all.]

The world might be better off if those people were thrown into the hole.?

However, Hiroki didn’t express his thoughts and instead asked something else.

[They’re kind of repulsive. Did you not find more honest people?]

[There were indeed some more decent and interesting proposals from funds affiliated with industrial companies than those that were just purely funds.]

[Industrial companies now make their own funds?]

Hiroki, who had little experience in business management except at his recycling company, was intrigued by Ishida’s story.

[They could do it. Most of the large companies nowadays do the same thing as funds. A holding company would be the leading them and invests in subsidiaries in each business domain. Let’s see…… Let’s have the electric power company as an example. Electric companies are one of the companies that people are eager to invest in. For projects with uncertain success rates, such as development of new power sources and natural power, the mainstream is to let ventures take on the work and then buy the ones that have produced results.]

Hiroki’s hazy memory suggests that news releases on the development of new battery and wind power generation technologies were usually either from research laboratories or venture companies.

Let others cross the dangerous bridges and buy the results when they become available.

This is the tried and tested road of rich companies’ strategy to minimize risk.

[Hmph. So, why are these industrial companies interested in us again?]

[Of course, it’s so that they can generate nuclear power!]

Ishida vigorously explained.

[……They’re still holding on to that?]

There had always been talks of contracts with power companies that wanted to generate nuclear power, and eventually, the company might be able to dump radioactive waste in the hole, but radioactive waste is under strict control of the country and is a strategic material that could lead to terrorism if taken away.

Safety measures require huge investment, and difficult and troublesome negotiations with the country and related agencies.

Hiroki was hesitant to accept it because he could just pour a large amount of waste into the hole without having to touch upon such a thing.

To be precise, Hiroki just found it troublesome.

[It’s not that…… It was because they will be able to fully utilize nuclear power as the country’s main source of electricity. How revolutionary this would be! The current green power business of solar power, wind power and other naturally-generated power will be blown away. There’s a wide difference between the efficiency after all!]

[That certainly sounds amazing.]

Will the windmills forested in the countryside and the solar fields spreading across abandoned land become unprofitable waste?

Thinking of all these, Hiroki thinks it’s great. The more waste, the better.

[Yes. The price of electricity will go down a lot. Policies of nations around the globe will change. Europe, which has invested a lot in green power generation, would be ghastly pale. The Middle East, which has been earning a premium on thermal power generation, will also have to lower the price of oil significantly.]

If Hiroki takes Ishida’s words as they are, all the investments in windmill forests in Germany and the Netherlands, and the large-scale solar panel factories in the US and China will be wasted.

And all of it will become waste.

[Feels like they would harbor quite the resentment……]

Gaining market through business activities also means that there would be some people losing market and losing a lot of money.

Having quite an impact on the world would also incur some resentment from the world.

[When the price of electricity goes down, the price of oil would also go down. When the price of electricity and oil fall, the price of all products would also fall. Both are at the very top of the industrial structure. In other words, the global economy will improve very much.]

Except for the Middle East and those who have been promoting natural power.

Their existence is quite terrorizing for them.

[It’s a dream come true, don’t you think?]

[That’s right! It’s a dream come true!]

Ishida’s eyes lit up, but the nature of his dream might be a little different from that of Hiroki.

Ishida’s dream seems to be to save the world by throwing away the waste in this world.

""

It is a wonderful dream.

Hyenas all over the world also have big dreams and desires for their hole.

It’s a golden dream, one achieved through some sort of alchemy.

After Hiroki finished his discussion with Ishida, he headed for his own private nap room set up beside the hole.

There are a few scratches on the floor from dragging drums, but he doesn’t mind and just lies down on his makeshift bed.

He feels like he can have a good dream today.

As Hiroki closed his eyes, he felt like he heard something calling to him from far away.

★　★　★　★　★

Shortly before the discovery of an unmanned cargo ship in the Indian Ocean, a fishing village on Ceylon Island, also in the Indian Ocean, had a series of incidents in which villagers who had gone fishing were found dead, their corpses pitch black.

(T/N: I don’t know why Author called it Ceylon Island, instead of Sri Lanka, which is what it’s called now. Well, the Author was trying to avoid saying locations aside from the famous Tokyo, so I guess this may be intentional.)

It was thought to be an outbreak of some sort of plague, but unfortunately, the fishing village was located in a rebel-held area on Ceylon Island, so there was a definite delay in notifying the government authorities and dispatching an emergency medical team.

Moreover, after several days, the government issued a statement strongly condemning the rebel forces for violating guarantees for the safety of the medical personnel, as they had lost contact with the medical team they had dispatched to the village.